TCFC Welcomes you to 2024! Detailed Account from a TCFC Member of TPD and Sheriff Nanos Failures; TCFC Completes first testimony to State Legislature
Happy New Year from TCFC. We are dedicating this newsletter to a member who wishes to remain anonymous:
From a TCFC member:
"An apartment tenant of our company reported someone had burglarized their apartment. Our staff entered the tenant’s apartment to examine the damage with the tenant and while in the apartment, the same burglar re-entered the apartment through a window. The burglar cooked a meal in the tenant’s apartment, showered, and slept in the tenant’s bed. He rummaged through his clothing, stole personal belongings and caused extensive property damage. The burglar had left behind fentanyl paraphernalia (tinfoil, straw, lighter) in the apartment and came back to retrieve it! An altercation between our staff and the burglar ensued inside the apartment and in the parking lot. Our staff convinced the burglar to comply with staff commands and called 911 to report a burglary in progress.
The suspect was promptly arrested by TPD but released hours later. The jail refused to book him on medical grounds as he had a broken hand. A TPD patrol sergeant decided to simply drop him off at the hospital as TPD didn’t have enough officers to keep him in custody while in the hospital. TPD made this decision knowing that the burglar had been indicted days prior for another burglary and had a 20+ year arrest/prison record with a documented history of drug abuse and mental illness. He has victimized dozens of homes and businesses on the west side and is well known to TPD.
Less than one week later, the same individual entered an occupied commercial business on Ft. Lowell Road and refused to surrender to TPD patrol officers. The SWAT team was deployed, and Ft. Lowell Road was closed for 4 hours as dozens upon dozens of officers and units were tied-up. The suspect was arrested (again), still had a broken hand, but this time TPD kept him custody.
The individual, Akil White, is now held in the Pima County Jail on a $40k bond. Attached is a photo of officers removing him from our staff vehicle along with his record including 45 misdemeanor court cases and over 10 felony court cases. These numbers don't include all of the times he was arrested and not charged/prosecuted.
The SWAT situation, the victimization of more citizens and businesses, as well as the deployment of additional resources was entirely avoidable and preventable. It’s an inexcusable failure."
See BELOW at end of this message for the 13 Pages of Docket Court Cases and Dismissals by Judges
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TCFC’s Take:
We have been strong supporters and proponents of TPD since our formation. We implore our members and the community to report crimes. We have rightly criticized Mayor & Council for implementing policies that tie the hands of TPD and rob it of the resources needed to protect the community while at the same time funding and implementing policies that make it impossible for TPD to effectively police, including: the Free Crime Bus, a permissive attitude towards public open-air drug use, aggressive panhandling, shoplifting, loitering and permitting encampments in washes, parks, public property as well as private property. We have criticized Sheriff Nanos for releasing criminals due to his unwillingness to take accountability for medical intake as it is his responsibility. The jail under Sheriff Nano's rules, refused to book him on medical grounds as he had a broken hand. Even though the jail has a fully capable medical facility, Sheriff Nanos refuses anyone with medical issues including the usage of Fentanyl or treatment with Narcan (Offenders know that if they say they have recently used fentanyl or were treated with Narcan, they will be rejected from booking).
We have also criticized the Pima County Attorney’s Office (Laura Conover) for causing a staffing shortage and chaos in her office, failing to prosecute, failing to seek appropriate sentencing, and failing to protect our community by permitting and encouraging lawlessness. These are impotent, failed organizations. We now add TPD to that list!.
The data bears these failures out. Pima County has the highest fatal overdose rate of any non-rural county in Arizona. Pima County has the highest crime rate of all counties in Arizona per 100k people:
Apache (96) Greenlee (113) Graham (290) Pinal (369) Santa Cruz (371) Navajo (389) Cochise (432) Yavapai (457) Yuma (504) Mohave (656) La Paz (710) Maricopa (787) Gila (796) Coconino (820) Pima (828)
Further, with inexcusably long police response times, lack of investigative follow-through, and horrific delays in getting police reports, the public has simply stopped reporting crimes. Alternatively, so many 911 calls are met with such a late response and/or no response, the outcome when officers finally arrive on scene is no crime is found.
We have reported to TPD leadership basic failures in policing. For example, TPD’s online crime reporting tool is missing certain streets and addresses. TPD is handing out victim pamphlets dating from Chief Magnus’ command with the wrong link to register for victim services. The same outdated and wrong victim pamphlets are being distributed weeks later. How many more victims need to further suffer by not being able to register for victim services?
TCFC spent hundreds of hours with Pima County to open the Transition Center at the Pima County Jail, TPD has failed to widely promote its opening to patrol officers as a tool officers can use for misdemeanor arrests. One reason why- patrol officers are literally running from high priority call to high priority call, resulting in a lack of arrest for anything but the most violent crimes.
The harsh reality is that although understaffing is a driving force behind TPD’s failures, it is far from the sole source of TPD’s failures.
TPD’s decisions including failure to strongly and publicly advocate for what it needs, inability to recruit and retain officers, failure to invest in its own equipment, and most importantly, failure to protect life and property have led to one conclusion: TPD is broken, and its failures are creating more victims.
It’s time for TPD to treat its own department and public safety like the 5-alarm blaze that it is.
To the patrol officers:
We know you’re putting your lives in danger in an unforgiving environment in which your sacrifices are willfully disregarded and ignored. We feel your frustration every time you make an arrest only for it not be prosecuted by the Pima County Attorney’s Office (Laura Conover) or for a suspect to be refused by the jail on medical grounds (Sheriff Nanos) or drive by people openly smoking and injecting drugs in front of you. It’s demeaning and demoralizing and disrespectful. Continue contacting us privately in confidence to share your frustrations so that we may advocate on your behalf. We will continue to stand with you!
We implore TPD leadership to the do the following:
- Suspend any non-urgent travel for TPD leadership. All hands are needed on deck!
- Authorize as much overtime as is needed to restore law and order until your reach adequate staffing levels.
- Work with the Sheriff and Pima County to stop discharging individuals for basic medical problems including substance use and treatment with Narcan. If someone commits a crime, they need to be arrested and jailed appropriately. It is not excusable to release someone for a broken hand. Work on solutions and implement them! Don’t allow criminals to continue re-victimizing through repeated failures of the criminal justice system.
- Advocate for yourselves and for public safety!! Bring transparency! Whether it’s your dilapidated Crown Victoria police cars or broken blood testing equipment to process DUI cases, start advocating! If you’re not getting what you need from Mayor & Council, which is plainly obvious, stand-up and bring it to the public. Bring it to every level of government. Silence is costing lives and making the City an intolerable place to live or work.
- Get on with it and if you can’t for whatever reason, resign in PROTEST, and do so publicly. Seek employment at a department that appreciates your contribution. The Mayor & Council are letting our City swirl the drain in front of our eyes. Honor Your Oath to Serve.
To our members:
Continue informing us when TPD fails you. Call the media. We will assist you.
We are fighting failed government infrastructure at every level. We won’t sit idly by as we watch those who are charged with protecting us, fail us. We won’t bear silent witness as fentanyl addicts terrorize our community without regard for others or consequences in their pursuit of a lawless lifestyle driven by drug addiction. We are going to advocate and fight back when we see misguided policies that favor criminals and those who victimize over victims and productive members of the community. Please join us as we enter 2024 and fight to take back Tucson from the vice grips of misery.
TCFC Completed Our First Testimony at the State Legislature, last Week!
Stay tuned this coming week for details on this very important first step!!!!
TCFC Members Matter and are getting attention!!!
13 Page Court Cases for AKIL WHITE
CLICK HERE: FOR VIEWING PDF DOCUMENT clearer OF BELOW
As a fellow Tucson citizen, I’m concerned about crime right along with everybody else. However, this kind of biased “hit job” website/report is the kind of thing we do not need to mend differences in our society. It only presents one side and becomes an echo chamber for people who agree.
A better approach would be to have a public forum with city leaders, reps of TPD/PCSD, and members of the public in which hard-hitting questions like these can be asked and then answers can be given. From there, if people listen with an open mind, they can then decide afterward if they feel like the city and police dept are on the right track or not. But without giving Romero, Conover, Nanos, and others a chance to rebut these concerns, it comes across as a slanted attack. People from both major parties are doing this these days, and it’s SO corrosive for our peaceful, united society.
So this site/report can be seen as a start if you’d like…maybe call it the initial venting. But to make real progress happen, it has to be more than one side saying the other is awful. There needs to be a productive dialogue. (The same is true of issues like immigration, gun violence, reproductive rights…you name it. When all we do is get entrenched on our own side and talk with people who feel the same way, opposite sides just dig in their heels and no positive change ever comes from it.) Something to consider, please.
Wow…quite an indictment of the entire criminal justice apparatus of Tucson and Pima County.
I was a little sloppy with my big fingers. But the rest: 16 of those 43 arrest dates were in 2023.
Point being he is getting more active and getting bolder.
At this point, with this information, there should be no immunity from civil liability for anyone involved in this mess. No judge, no county attorney, no defense attorney. No officers, no deputies. This needs to be sorted out, big time. No one who isn’t pushing for maximum charging and sentencing under the law. Anything but maximum sentencing and protection for this community, adults, children, grandparents and you fail your duties in your position as well as membership in this community.. You can’t claim you didn’t know. YOU need to protect US.
So spent a little time looking at this gents on line court records. It looks like 5 felony convictions. You have to work hard to get a conviction. Two your records reflect for which he did time, then:530-17 for Poss of Dangerous Drug, class 4 felony which netted him 2 yrs probation and 60 days in PCJ. (this after his previous two felony convictions). In 2021, felony of Attempted Promoting Prison Contraband, (class 3 felony) and 2nd Burglary, (class 3 felony). With three felonies already, he received the harsh penalty of probation for both felonies. And then a Petition to Revoke Probation was filed. You don’t know how hard it is get a judge to sign off on a petition to revoke. And the result: tada: his reward for violating probation: wait for it::::: 30 days in PCJ, CONCURRENT. That;s 5 felonies,and probation revocation. This guy must be laughing at everyone.
And the city records show: from 1999 to present: 96 arrests or citations. NINETY-SIX. NINETY-SIX. NINETY-SIX misdemeanors. Can’t tell how many were originally felony arrests that the county attorney waived down to misdemeanors). NINETY-SIX CHARGES over 43 arrest dates. 43
You couldn’t pay me $100K base salary to be a cop. It’s become entirely too dangerous thanks to the anti-police mentality in our community. When our city and county leaders stop coddling the anti-police crazies and start backing up law enforcement, we’ll have more recruits.
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